Food and Social Media by Rousseau Signe;

Author:Rousseau, Signe;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: AltaMira Press
Published: 2012-04-09T04:00:00+00:00

Hayward’s view is not antithetical to Sietsema’s, who also notes that he is “all for everyone having his or her say, but when it comes to cultural criticism there is a strong case to be made for professionalism and expertise” (2010a). The proverbial rub, then, is in the distinction—or lack thereof—between food criticism as a form of cultural commentary, practiced and maintained by a group who are recognized experts in the field, and online restaurant reviewing by a group who are fashioning themselves as the new experts at delivering experiences and information, and delivering it fast. (In answer to the question of what makes her a restaurant expert, Freeman explains, “Most importantly, I don’t over-intellectualize food. I’m a different kind of food writer. I’m an eater.”)[7] But as food writer and industry consultant Joyce Goldstein points out, it may be worth remembering the difference between reviewing and criticism: “Reviewing is ‘You went, you ate there, and you had a good time, or not.’ . . . Criticism implies having a scale of knowledge and having a range of things that serve as a basis for comparison. It involves a certain level of intelligence, a frame of reference, a big picture, and some depth behind the words” (quoted in Dornenburg and Page 1998, 151).

To be sure, the “big picture” could provide one visible heuristic for distinguishing between professional critics and bloggers, the latter of whom almost invariably count on photographs to tell at least some part of their dining experiences, while broadsheet journalists for the most part still generate pictures with words. Distinctions of professionalism aside, there is no question that bloggers have fast gained importance in the field of restaurant reviewing, thanks to attention from both the public at large and restaurants themselves. In his review of the then-emergent (in 2007) trend of blogging about restaurants, Allen Salkin recounts the story of blogger Ed Levine (now of Serious Eats) posting on his blog that he was planning to eat lunch at Thomas Keller’s acclaimed restaurant Per Se an hour later. Levine had also noted that for what he was about to pay, he could afford seventy-seven hotdog lunches at Gray’s Papaya. During Levine’s last course, “the waiters, with a grand flourish, brought out a hot dog. Someone at the restaurant had seen his blog entry only an hour earlier” (Salkin 2007).

This is just one example of restaurants taking note of what bloggers say about them. It is an implicit—in this case a little more explicit—acknowledgment of what Salkin then called the “new food game . . . that never stops grazing. A proliferation of blogs treating every menu revision, construction permit, clash of egos and suspiciously easy-to-get reservation as high drama is changing the rules of the restaurant world and forcing everyone from owners to chefs to publicists to get used to the added scrutiny.” (Salkin adds that as a result of blogs operating “apart from the traditional news media . . . ethical standards are all over the map.”)

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